Ammunition, furniture and engine parts are among the tens of thousands of items clogging up Scotland's sewers.
Conservationists, who made the discovery, also found three suitcases, a golf shoe, a teddy bear, traffic cones, tyres, shotgun pellets, a motorcycle speedometer, part of a garden chair and the front grill of a car.
It comes as new figures showed there were approximately 37,000 blockages in the drains and sewer network last year attended by Scottish Water and around 80 per cent of these resulted from inappropriate items being flushed down sinks and toilets.
School children have helped launch a new phase of a campaign aimed at reducing numbers of blockages.
The latest stage of Scottish Water’s "Keep the water cycle running smoothly" campaign has a specific focus on bathroom waste.
Ahead of the launch of a new advert to highlight the campaign, the students from Musselburgh were at Fisherrow Sands to note down the items of rubbish Scottish Water volunteers found as they cleaned them off the beach.
The pupils from Burgh Primary School joined forces with Scottish Water and the Marine Conservation Society to highlight the costly impact of disposing with personal cleansing and cleaning wipes, cotton buds and nappies down the toilet.
This material does not break down easily when flushed, and can collect in large clumps in sewers, creating a blockage which can potentially make its way onto Scotland’s beaches and impact the coastal environment.
In the Musselburgh sewer network, there were over 200 blockages in 2015 - almost four per week or one for every 50 homes.
Scott Fraser, campaign manager at Scottish Water, said: “The majority of sewer blockages are entirely avoidable as they are caused by items such as wipes, nappies and sanitary items being put down toilets.
“The waste water drain which runs from your house to the public sewer is usually only about four inches wide, which is less than the diameter of a DVD.
“With the help of our customers, our campaign is helping to get the message across and we’ve made great progress, but there is still a lot more that can be done to tackle blocked drains and sewer flooding. We thank customers who have responded to our campaign.”
Shamin Akhtar, East Lothian Council education convener, said: “We are delighted that our young people are involved in raising awareness of such an important issue.
"Their work in helping to document the waste found on our beaches should be a valuable tool for Scottish Water and the Marine Conservation Society to be able to educate people in disposing of waste in a responsible manner.”
Catherine Gemmell, conservation officer at the Marine Conservation Society, said: "We really want to see children learning from a young age about what they should, and more importantly should not, be flushing down the toilet."
Scottish Water volunteers have also been in Prestwick to carry out a beach clean and survey and will be visiting other coastal towns as part of the campaign and advertisements which will be broadcast on television, radio and on digital and social media channels across Scotland.
Since the campaign started two years ago, the number of blockages or sewer chokes has reduced by 12 per cent from 40,000 to just over 35,000 a year, or almost 100 per day, across Scotland.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel